Epic

I’ll confess I got a little anxious when I tried to call Ziggy before going over to his place and got a recording saying the number was out of service. I know he had said his phone service was probably off, but I had this moment where I suddenly worried that he had left the country again. It felt like poison slowly coating my insides. I told myself I was being stupid. I was halfway there on the train when I realized I probably should have brought his bag with me. Whatever. He could get it later.

It was about half past three when I buzzed his apartment number from downstairs.

Up there I found him with a black and brown smudge on his cheek, wearing a T-shirt inside out, running shorts, barefoot. He had a paint brush in one hand. The artist kind, not the house-painter kind. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry. I found a piece that was half-finished and the next thing you know I started working on it, and is it after three already?”

He went into his bedroom while I loitered in the living room. It looked the same as the last time I was here, the night after we’d filmed the Wonderland video: very goth. In a draped-velvet-with-candelabras kind of way.

I hadn’t thought about that day, or night, in a long time. Was that when Chris had started using drugs again? Jeez. There had been cocaine at the after-party. I had assumed the film crew had brought it but maybe it had been Lacey. Or some combination thereof.

I remembered Ziggy being really sensible that day. And I had really appreciated that. We had drunk too much and had barely made it here because neither of us could see straight.

Okay, put “sensible” in air quotes. Somewhere in the back of our minds we had to both have been wondering if “going home together” was going to lead to something. It hadn’t, but blame alcohol for that, too.

I went into the hall. His bedroom door was open and I could hear rustling like he was digging through a drawer of clothes. I leaned against the door frame.

He had put on a pair of black jeans but apparently hadn’t found a shirt yet. His chest was bare and as he lifted his head to look at me it was like his nipples were staring at me, too.

So much for going out. I took a step into the room and pulled one of his beltloops with one finger until his hip touched mine. I ran my other hand up his bare stomach until my fingertips skated over one nipple.

A last shred of my rational brain made my lips move. “Are you hungry?”

He shuddered as one of my callused fingers circled the tip of his nipple. “Only for this,” he breathed, and left his lips slack, waiting to be kissed. I did not miss my cue. I kissed him, wet and soft at first, then harder as I tugged on that nipple. Despite my pulling, the kiss moved him backward toward the bed. I let my mouth express all the urgency I’d been holding back and I flattened him back atop the bedspread.

His hands pushed at my denim jacket and I shed it without breaking the kiss. To get my shirt off, though, I stood up straight and pulled it over my head.

I wanted to insist that I wasn’t any different. Except I knew that I was, physically, mentally, spiritually, from the last time we did this. I’d fought hard to change, yet I still didn’t want to admit it, like that would give too much credence to how much of a failure of a human being I had been in the past.

Okay, at the time, I admit, I wasn’t thinking that deeply. It was later when I was trying to explain to myself why I didn’t simply revel in his admiration of how I’d changed that I thought up a reason why. In that moment I shook my head to brush him off.

“Believe what you want, but you do.” He ran a hand up and down my arm as I crawled over him again. I was in no hurry to get our jeans off. Well, I was, but I wasn’t.

I ran my fingernails down his chest and watched him shiver. It had been a really, really long time, hadn’t it? I had forced myself to forget how much I loved doing this, how much I loved making love to him. Remembering again was like going from black and white to color, from mono to stereo.

“Oh yes,” he said. On that point we most definitely agreed.
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I’ve gotten good at shoving all that away for a little while. Turns out it’s a good coping mechanism for me. I’m better equipped to handle the crap when I let myself enjoy the gaps in it than when I worry straight through. Who knew?

Just…I have no words… That was soooo worth the wait! And Epic really was the perfect song. I just know there’s all sorts of drama to come, but it would be great (in that non-existant perfect world) if it revolved around the band’s future, and not around D and Z… Heh. I’m fully aware this is a pipe-dream. The drama will encompass both but I so want the boys to just be happy and together.